Calibrating photometric redshifts of luminous red galaxies

Padmanabhan, Nikhil; Budavari, Tamas; Schlegel, David J.; Bridges, Terry; Brinkmann, Jonathan; Cannon, Russell; Connolly, Andrew J.; Croom, Scott M.; Csabai, Istvan; Drinkwater, Michael; Eisenstein, Daniel J.; Hewett, Paul C.; Loveday, Jon; Nichol, Robert C.; Pimbblet, Kevin A.; De Propris, Robert; Schneider, Donald P.; Scranton, Ryan; Seljak, Uros; Shanks, Tom; Szapudi, Istvan; Szalay, Alexander S.; Wake, David

doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2005.08915.x

Title: Calibrating photometric redshifts of luminous red galaxies

Journal Article · 01 May 2005 · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2966.2005.08915.x · OSTI ID:1379844

Padmanabhan, Nikhil ^[1]; Budavari, Tamas ^[2]; Schlegel, David J. ^[1]; Bridges, Terry ^[3]; Brinkmann, Jonathan ^[4]; Cannon, Russell ^[5]; Connolly, Andrew J. ^[6]; Croom, Scott M. ^[5]; Csabai, Istvan ^[7]; Drinkwater, Michael ^[8]; Eisenstein, Daniel J. ^[9]; Hewett, Paul C. ^[10]; Loveday, Jon ^[11]; Nichol, Robert C. ^[12]; Pimbblet, Kevin A. ^[8]; De Propris, Robert ^[13]; Schneider, Donald P. ^[14]; Scranton, Ryan ^[6]; Seljak, Uros ^[1]; Shanks, Tom ^[15] more »

Princeton Univ., Princeton, NJ (United States)
Johns Hopkins Univ., Baltimore, MD (United States)
Queen's Univ., Kingston, ON (Canada)
Apache Point Observatory, Sunspot, MN (United States)
Anglo-Australian Observatory, Epping, NSW (Australia)
Univ. of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA (United States)
Eotvos Univ., Budapest (Hungary)
Univ. of Queensland (Australia)
Steward Observatory, Tucson, AZ (United States)
Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge (United Kingdom)
Univ. of Sussex, Brighton (United Kingdom)
Univ. of Portsmouth, Portsmouth (United Kingdom)
Australian National Univ., Weston, ACT (Australia)
Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park, PA (United States)
Univ. of Durham, Durham (United Kingdom)
Institute of Astronomy, Honolulu, HI (United States)
Carnegie Mellon Univ., Pittsburgh, PA (United States)

We discuss the construction of a photometric redshift catalogue of luminous red galaxies (LRGs) from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), emphasizing the principal steps necessary for constructing such a catalogue: (i) photometrically selecting the sample, (ii) measuring photometric redshifts and their error distributions, and (iii) estimating the true redshift distribution. We compare two photometric redshift algorithms for these data and find that they give comparable results. Calibrating against the SDSS and SDSS–2dF (Two Degree Field) spectroscopic surveys, we find that the photometric redshift accuracy is σ~ 0.03 for redshifts less than 0.55 and worsens at higher redshift (~ 0.06 for z < 0.7). These errors are caused by photometric scatter, as well as systematic errors in the templates, filter curves and photometric zero-points. We also parametrize the photometric redshift error distribution with a sum of Gaussians and use this model to deconvolve the errors from the measured photometric redshift distribution to estimate the true redshift distribution. We pay special attention to the stability of this deconvolution, regularizing the method with a prior on the smoothness of the true redshift distribution. The methods that we develop are applicable to general photometric redshift surveys.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Cite

Export

Save

Research Organization:: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP)

Grant/Contract Number:: AC02-05CH11231

OSTI ID:: 1379844

Journal Information:: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 359, Issue 1; ISSN 0035-8711

Publisher:: Royal Astronomical SocietyCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

References (38)

Optical multicolors - A poor person's Z machine for galaxies Koo, D. C. The Astronomical Journal, Vol. 90 https://doi.org/10.1086/113748	journal	March 1985
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Photometric Camera Gunn, J. E.; Carr, M.; Rockosi, C. The Astronomical Journal, Vol. 116, Issue 6 https://doi.org/10.1086/300645	journal	December 1998
An Optimal Multihump Filter for Photometric Redshifts Budavári, Tamás; Szalay, Alexander S.; Csabai, István The Astronomical Journal, Vol. 121, Issue 6 https://doi.org/10.1086/321068	journal	June 2001
Secondary standard stars for absolute spectrophotometry Oke, J. B.; Gunn, J. E. The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 266 https://doi.org/10.1086/160817	journal	March 1983
The [CLC][ITAL]u[/ITAL][/CLC][arcmin]′[CLC][ITAL]g[/ITAL][/CLC][arcmin]′[CLC][ITAL]r[/ITAL][/CLC][arcmin]′[CLC][ITAL]i[/ITAL][/CLC][arcmin]′[CLC][ITAL]z[/ITAL][/CLC][arcmin]′ Standard-Star System Smith, J. Allyn; Tucker, Douglas L.; Kent, Stephen The Astronomical Journal, Vol. 123, Issue 4 https://doi.org/10.1086/339311	journal	April 2002
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Photometric System Fukugita, M.; Ichikawa, T.; Gunn, J. E. The Astronomical Journal, Vol. 111 https://doi.org/10.1086/117915	journal	April 1996
Astrometric Calibration of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Pier, Jeffrey R.; Munn, Jeffrey A.; Hindsley, Robert B. The Astronomical Journal, Vol. 125, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1086/346138	journal	March 2003
The spectral evolution of galaxies. I - an observational approach Hamilton, D. The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 297 https://doi.org/10.1086/163537	journal	October 1985
Spectroscopic Target Selection for the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: The Luminous Red Galaxy Sample Eisenstein, Daniel J.; Annis, James; Gunn, James E. The Astronomical Journal, Vol. 122, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.1086/323717	journal	November 2001
Estimating photometric redshifts with artificial neural networks Firth, Andrew E.; Lahav, Ofer; Somerville, Rachel S. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 339, Issue 4 https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-8711.2003.06271.x	journal	March 2003
Slicing Through Multicolor Space: Galaxy Redshifts from Broadband Photometry Connolly, A. J.; Csabai, I.; Szalay, A. S. The Astronomical Journal, Vol. 110 https://doi.org/10.1086/117720	journal	December 1995
A New Method For Galaxy Cluster Detection. I. The Algorithm Gladders, Michael D.; Yee, H. K. C. The Astronomical Journal, Vol. 120, Issue 4 https://doi.org/10.1086/301557	journal	October 2000
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey: Technical Summary York, Donald G.; Adelman, J.; Anderson, Jr., John E. The Astronomical Journal, Vol. 120, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1086/301513	journal	September 2000
Creating Spectral Templates from Multicolor Redshift Surveys Budavári, Tamás; Szalay, Alexander S.; Connolly, Andrew J. The Astronomical Journal, Vol. 120, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1086/301514	journal	September 2000
A Photometricity and Extinction Monitor at the Apache Point Observatory Hogg, David W.; Finkbeiner, Douglas P.; Schlegel, David J. The Astronomical Journal, Vol. 122, Issue 4 https://doi.org/10.1086/323103	journal	October 2001
Spectroscopic Target Selection in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: The Main Galaxy Sample Strauss, Michael A.; Weinberg, David H.; Lupton, Robert H. The Astronomical Journal, Vol. 124, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1086/342343	journal	September 2002
An Efficient Targeting Strategy for Multiobject Spectrograph Surveys: the Sloan Digital Sky Survey “Tiling” Algorithm Blanton, Michael R.; Lin, Huan; Lupton, Robert H. The Astronomical Journal, Vol. 125, Issue 4 https://doi.org/10.1086/344761	journal	April 2003
Angular Clustering with Photometric Redshifts in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: Bimodality in the Clustering Properties of Galaxies Budavari, Tamas; Connolly, Andrew J.; Szalay, Alexander S. The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 595, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1086/377168	journal	September 2003
The Anglo-Australian Observatory 2dF facility Lewis, I. J.; Cannon, R. D.; Taylor, K. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 333, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-8711.2002.05333.x	journal	June 2002
Bayesian Photometric Redshift Estimation Benitez, Narciso The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 536, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1086/308947	journal	June 2000
Reconstructing Galaxy Spectral Energy Distributions from Broadband Photometry Csabai, I.; Connolly, A. J.; Szalay, A. S. The Astronomical Journal, Vol. 119, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1086/301159	journal	January 2000
ANN z : Estimating Photometric Redshifts Using Artificial Neural Networks Collister, Adrian A.; Lahav, Ofer Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, Vol. 116, Issue 818 https://doi.org/10.1086/383254	journal	April 2004
Photometric redshifts from evolutionary synthesis with PÉGASE: The code Z-PEG and the $z=0$ age constraint Le Borgne, D.; Rocca-Volmerange, B. Astronomy & Astrophysics, Vol. 386, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361:20020259	journal	May 2002
The Redshift Distribution and Luminosity Functions of Galaxies in the Hubble Deep Field Gwyn, Stephen D. J.; Hartwick, F. D. A. The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 468, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1086/310237	journal	September 1996
Average Spectra of Massive Galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Eisenstein, Daniel J.; Hogg, David W.; Fukugita, Masataka The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 585, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1086/346233	journal	March 2003
CCD photometry of Abell clusters. I - Magnitudes and redshifts for 84 brightest cluster galaxies Schneider, D. P.; Gunn, J. E.; Hoessel, J. G. The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 264 https://doi.org/10.1086/160602	journal	January 1983
Sloan Digital Sky Survey: Early Data Release Stoughton, Chris; Lupton, Robert H.; Bernardi, Mariangela The Astronomical Journal, Vol. 123, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1086/324741	journal	January 2002
Luminous early-type field galaxies at z : 0:4 -- I. Observations and redshift catalogue of 581 galaxies Willis, J. P.; Hewett, P. C.; Warren, S. J. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 325, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-8711.2001.04504.x	journal	August 2001
A Catalog of Color-based Redshift Estimates for [ITAL][CLC]z[/CLC][/ITAL] ≲ 4 Galaxies in the Hubble Deep Field Wang, Yun; Bahcall, Neta; Turner, Edwin L. The Astronomical Journal, Vol. 116, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.1086/300592	journal	November 1998
Stellar population synthesis at the resolution of 2003 Bruzual, G.; Charlot, S. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 344, Issue 4 https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-8711.2003.06897.x	journal	October 2003
The First Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Abazajian, Kevork; Adelman-McCarthy, Jennifer K.; Ageros, Marcel A. The Astronomical Journal, Vol. 126, Issue 4 https://doi.org/10.1086/378165	journal	October 2003
Colors and magnitudes predicted for high redshift galaxies Coleman, G. D.; Wu, C. -C.; Weedman, D. W. The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, Vol. 43 https://doi.org/10.1086/190674	journal	July 1980
A Blind Test of Photometric Redshift Prediction Hogg, David W.; Cohen, Judith G.; Blandford, Roger The Astronomical Journal, Vol. 115, Issue 4 https://doi.org/10.1086/300277	journal	April 1998
Evolution of the Galaxy Population Based on Photometric Redshifts in the Hubble Deep Field Sawicki, M. J.; Lin, H.; Yee, H. K. C. The Astronomical Journal, Vol. 113 https://doi.org/10.1086/118231	journal	January 1997
The Statistical Approach to Quantifying Galaxy Evolution Brunner, Robert J.; Connolly, Andrew J.; Szalay, Alexander S. The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 516, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1086/307146	journal	May 1999
The Second Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Abazajian, Kevork; Adelman-McCarthy, Jennifer K.; Agüeros, Marcel A. The Astronomical Journal, Vol. 128, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1086/421365	journal	July 2004
An iterative technique for the rectification of observed distributions Lucy, L. B. The Astronomical Journal, Vol. 79 https://doi.org/10.1086/111605	journal	June 1974
The Application of Photometric Redshifts to the SDSS Early Data Release Csabai, István; Budavári, Tamás; Connolly, Andrew J. The Astronomical Journal, Vol. 125, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1086/345883	journal	February 2003

Cited By (20)

Optical Cluster Finding with an Adaptive Matched‐Filter Technique: Algorithm and Comparison with Simulations Dong, Feng; Pierpaoli, Elena; Gunn, James E. The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 676, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1086/522490	journal	April 2008
The clustering of luminous red galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey imaging data Padmanabhan, Nikhil; Schlegel, David J.; Seljak, Uroš Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 378, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2966.2007.11593.x	journal	June 2007
Systematic errors in weak lensing: application to SDSS galaxy-galaxy weak lensing Mandelbaum, R.; Hirata, C. M.; Seljak, U. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 361, Issue 4 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2966.2005.09282.x	journal	August 2005
Estimating the redshift distribution of photometric galaxy samples - II. Applications and tests of a new method Cunha, Carlos E.; Lima, Marcos; Oyaizu, Hiroaki Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 396, Issue 4 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2966.2009.14908.x	journal	July 2009
amico galaxy clusters in KiDS-DR3: sample properties and selection function Maturi, Matteo; Bellagamba, Fabio; Radovich, Mario Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 485, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stz294	journal	January 2019
Dark Energy Survey year 1 results: galaxy sample for BAO measurement Crocce, M.; Ross, A. J.; Sevilla-Noarbe, I. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 482, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/sty2522	journal	September 2018
Optimizing galaxy samples for clustering measurements in photometric surveys Tanoglidis, Dimitrios; Chang, Chihway; Frieman, Joshua Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 491, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stz3281	journal	November 2019
Cosmology from cosmic shear power spectra with Subaru Hyper Suprime-Cam first-year data Hikage, Chiaki; Oguri, Masamune; Hamana, Takashi Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan, Vol. 71, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1093/pasj/psz010	journal	March 2019
Pan-STARRS1 variability of XMM-COSMOS AGN: I. Impact on photometric redshifts⋆⋆⋆ Simm, T.; Saglia, R.; Salvato, M. Astronomy & Astrophysics, Vol. 584 https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201526859	journal	December 2015
Modelling the angular correlation function and its full covariance in photometric galaxy surveys: Angular clustering in photometric surveys Crocce, Martín; Cabré, Anna; Gaztañaga, Enrique Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 414, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2966.2011.18393.x	journal	March 2011
Baryon Oscillations and Consistency Tests for Photometrically Determined Redshifts of Very Faint Galaxies Zhan, Hu; Knox, Lloyd The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 644, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1086/503622	journal	June 2006
The imprints of primordial non-gaussianities on large-scale structure: scale dependent bias and abundance of virialized objects Dalal, Neal; Doré, Olivier; Huterer, Dragan arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.0710.4560	text	January 2007
Estimating the Redshift Distribution of Photometric Galaxy Samples II. Applications and Tests of a New Method Cunha, Carlos E.; Lima, Marcos; Oyaizu, Hiroaki arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.0810.2991	text	January 2008
Data Mining and Machine Learning in Astronomy Ball, Nicholas M.; Brunner, Robert J. arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.0906.2173	text	January 2009
Cosmology from cosmic shear power spectra with Subaru Hyper Suprime-Cam first-year data Hikage, Chiaki; Oguri, Masamune; Hamana, Takashi arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1809.09148	text	January 2018
AMICO galaxy clusters in KiDS-DR3: sample properties and selection function Maturi, Matteo; Bellagamba, Fabio; Radovich, Mario arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1810.02811	text	January 2018
Optimizing galaxy samples for clustering measurements in photometric surveys Tanoglidis, Dimitrios; Chang, Chihway; Frieman, Joshua arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1908.07150	text	January 2019
Systematic errors in weak lensing: application to SDSS galaxy-galaxy weak lensing Mandelbaum, Rachel; Hirata, Christopher M.; Seljak, Uros arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.astro-ph/0501201	text	January 2005
Baryon Oscillations and Consistency Tests for Photometrically-Determined Redshifts of Very Faint Galaxies Zhan, Hu; Knox, Lloyd arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.astro-ph/0509260	text	January 2005
The Clustering of Luminous Red Galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Imaging Data Padmanabhan, N.; Schlegel, D. J.; Seljak, U. arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.astro-ph/0605302	text	January 2006

Similar Records

PHOTOMETRIC REDSHIFTS AND SYSTEMATIC VARIATIONS IN THE SPECTRAL ENERGY DISTRIBUTIONS OF LUMINOUS RED GALAXIES FROM SDSS DR7

Journal Article · 2013 · Astrophysical Journal · OSTI ID:22126751

Greisel, N.; Seitz, S.; Bender, R.; +2 more

The 2dF-SDSS LRG and QSO (2SLAQ) Luminous Red Galaxy Survey

Journal Article · 2006 · Mon.Not.Roy.Astron.Soc. · OSTI ID:1861364

Cannon, R.

The Clustering of DESI-like Luminous Red Galaxies Using Photometric Redshifts

Journal Article · 2020 · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society · OSTI ID:1834235

Zhou, Rongpu; Newman, Jeffrey A.; Mao, Yao-Yuan; +11 more

Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
catalogues
surveys
galaxies: fundamental parameters

Title: Calibrating photometric redshifts of luminous red galaxies

Citation Formats

References (38)

Cited By (20)

Similar Records

Related Subjects